9 Days, 8 Nights

In nine days and eight nights Anthony will learn where he will spend the next four years. On March 19th around noon eastern standard time he will receive an envelope with the name of a program. That program will be in a U.S. city. And that U.S. city may be 60 miles from me, or 480 miles from me, or 2,200 miles from me.

Upon receiving this said envelope, Anthony will soon arrive at Port Columbus Airport and fly to Los Angeles. At LAX, around 10:30pm pacific time, I will find him and his envelope. And the rest will be Abbey history forever.

I am terrified. I am genuinely terrified.

Like your first trip to the dentist?
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Like when you studied abroad alone?
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Like when you submitted your passion project to the producer?
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This is a special kind of terrified. It is a long-awaiting, long-growing, friendly terrified. The weight has just become one more thing I carry around. Like when I started lugging my laptop everywhere. Just get a bigger bag. That's what you do when you need to carry around more baggage. Just get a bigger bag and keep on moving.

I have saved a bottle of Riesling. We like Riesling. I will have kleenex and my softest sweatpants and chicken noodle soup ready. I will be prepared. It's what I do. I lay out clothes and pack lunches. I put happy stickers on the calendar's most scary days. I buy waterproof mascara. I shoulda been a boy scout. I am always prepared.

But how does one prepare for March 19th, 2009? It's a Thursday. Not many Thursdays in one's life are important must-prepare kind of days. Monday. Now that's an important day. A lot of big stuff falls on Saturdays, too. Yeah, Saturday is a big deal. But Thursday? Thursday is most people's purgatory. Just the boring waiting room before the weekend.

Anyway, sometimes even Pollyanna gets tired of playing The Glad Game. I'm done. For the next eight days and nine nights, I'm just gonna live with this knot in my stomach. I'm just going to own it. Wear it. Surrender to it. If it wakes me up, I'm gonna write, and if it knocks me out, I'm gonna sleep. If it follows me around I'll just hold its hand.

Today I'm wearing my pearl bracelet from Bath. It is my favorite little souvenir. I bought it from an eccentric vendor along the Avon River. I saw it in her case and couldn't take my eyes off it. Smiling, I asked the old woman how much it cost. She removed it from the case and put it on my wrist. "Take them. Pearls make me sad." My face must have shown my confusion. She continued, "These look like little teardrops." When I looked up at her, I realized she was teary. Maybe it wasn't the pearls.

"Are you okay?"
"They do look like teardrops, don't they?"
"I guess so. But I think they're beautiful."
"If that's what you think, you should have them."

I always think about this when I wear my pearl bracelet from Bath. What can one take from this? Is it a classic "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder?" That doesn't make sense. She beheld them before me. Is it a "You're as happy as you decide yourself to be" kind of thing? I don't know. All I know is that without realizing it, I gravitate to that bracelet on my sad days.

Maybe pearls didn't really make the lady sad. Maybe she was just a sad lady. Maybe she looked at pearls and saw teardrops instead of little moons, or the center of flowers, or soapy bubbles. Maybe when she looked in the mirror she didn't see her spooky blue eyes. Maybe she just saw the wrinkles around them. I wonder what made her cry so much. I think she wonders, too. At least I know what I cry about. I cry about March 19th.

On March 19th I will not wear pearls. I may wear them on March 20th. I will let you know in nine days and eight nights.